Two years before presiding over one of the biggest comebacks in NFL playoff history, Doug Pederson was just another recently unemployed coach who couldn’t get far enough away from a sideline. “Gosh, I went several weeks after being let go by the Eagles [in early 2021], just riding off into the offseason,” recalls Pederson. “I needed to take a break. I needed to relax. I needed to clear my head.”
At the same time, Pederson knew he didn’t want to remain away from the league for long. “I think there’s two types of coaches,” he says. “One who’s content looking forward to retirement, and the other, like myself, who’s eager to get back.” But he had little idea of what to do football-wise in the interim, beyond booking a few trips to visit some coaching friends during training camp and conducting an informal autopsy of his Eagles tenure. “Just jotting down my thoughts: what was good, what was bad, how I would do things differently, what I would do the same,” he says. “That was my plan.”
Then Pederson received an email that altered his plan for the better. It was from former Jets and Dolphins executive Mike Tannenbaum, inviting Pederson to check out a meeting of The 33rd Team, a nascent company founded by Tannenbaum that bills itself as “the premier football think tank.” More curious than convinced, Pederson logged on and never looked back, becoming one of dozens of regulars at The 33rd Team’s weekly Zoom calls, right up until the Jaguars hired him last February. “It kept me engaged in the game,” Pederson says. “You’ve got to keep your mind sharp; you’ve got to keep thinking football and staying on top of things, and The 33rd Team really helped me accomplish that.”
